If you’ve bought an eBook from Harriman House, or indeed from anywhere else, you may be wondering how to actually get it on to the device you wish to read it on. Here is our guide to the popular devices and apps.

The most common software formats for an eBook are:

Mobi – these have the file extension .mobi and are read on the Amazon Kindle reader and apps.

ePub – these have the file extension .epub and are read on iPads, PCs, Macs and almost every other device.

PDF – these have the file extension .pdf and are be read on a variety of devices, including computers.

How to read an eBook on your desktop or laptop computer

To read titles on your computer, we recommend Adobe Digital Editions. Download the free software and once installed on your machine, if you double click an ePub file, Digital Editions should launch and import the title to your bookshelf.

To read Mobi files, you can download and install the Kindle App. Again, once this Kindle software is installed, if you double click on the Mobi eBook file on your device or computer the eBook should open and save the eBook in your Kindle library.

How to transfer a Mobi file to your Kindle device OR app via email

You can email Kindle files as email attachments. The file will usually be a Mobi file (although you can send Word documents and PDFs too). You need to tell Amazon which email address you would like to send from. Note: you will only need to do this once, not every time you want to send something. Your Amazon login email should already be approved.

Here is how you add an email address:

Log into your Amazon account.

Hover the mouse pointer over the tab that says “Hello <your_name>”.

Click “Manage Your Kindle” in the drop down menu.

On the left side of the “Manage your Kindle” page, click the link “Personal Document Settings” in the “Your Kindle Account” section.

Click the link “Add a new approved email address” and enter the email address you wish to send from.

On this page you can also see the email address to send files to for each of your registered devices. See the table at the top of the page entitled “Send-to-Kindle E-Mail Settings”. Simply send your files as attachments to this address and they will be added to your Kindle for you to read. There is no need to use a subject line or put any content in the message you send.

How to transfer a Mobi file to your Kindle device via your computer and USB cable

If you have a Kindle eReader device, you can also transfer via the USB cable that you use to charge it. Here’s what to do:

Connect your Kindle to your computer with the cable.

On Windows, your device should then appear in “My Computer”. On Mac you should see it appear at the bottom left of a Finder window.

When you have found the device on the computer, mouse click on it so that you are viewing the items saved on it using the computer. Then go to the Books folder and you can either copy + paste or drag the Mobi file into that folder from the location to which you downloaded it.

It might take a few seconds to transfer.

How to transfer an Epub OR PDF file to your iPad or iPhone

We’re using iTunes 11 for this. If you don’t have that and are on a Mac, just run software update. If you’re on a Windows machine, then you can download it here. You also need to have iBooks installed on your device, you can download it here.

Launch iTunes.

Connect the iPad to your computer.

Click on the Books tab on the left of iTunes.

Simply drag and drop the file from the iTunes library to the iPad and iTunes will automatically import it.

When you sync your iPad, you may need to enable the “Sync Books” checkbox if you haven’t done so before.